A platform built
for Kenya.

A bridge between the Constitution
and the citizen entitled to use it.

Kenya promulgated, in 2010, a Constitution remarkable for the breadth of the rights it conferred on the ordinary person. It enshrined an expansive Bill of Rights, declared at Article 48 that access to justice is the entitlement of every citizen, and at Article 159(2)(d) directed the judiciary to encourage forms of dispute resolution that do not depend on traditional litigation. Six years later, the Small Claims Court Act, No. 2 of 2016 went further still, permitting Kenyans to appear without an advocate in civil disputes up to one million shillings.

The constitutional architecture is settled. The statutes are written. The forums exist and operate across the forty seven counties. What has been missing, for the majority of the people the Constitution was drafted to protect, is the everyday instrument that turns black letter law into something a citizen can actually use. The platform is that instrument.

The work has three components and no more. The first is the translation of the relevant Kenyan statute into a language a non lawyer can follow, in English and in Kiswahili. The second is the careful exposition of the procedure the legislature itself wrote, in the forums where the citizen is entitled to appear. The third is a clean handoff to an admitted advocate where the matter passes beyond what self representation can responsibly address. None of this is a substitute for the legal profession; all of it helps widen the gate through which the profession is reached.

Every citizen deserves to know their own rights
without paying for the privilege.

More than a decade has passed since Kenya promulgated its Constitution, and yet a quiet, stubborn truth persists. The majority of Kenyans cannot tell you what their own Bill of Rights actually says. A worker whose wages are withheld rarely knows that the Employment Act, 2007 grants a written demand and a path to the Employment and Labour Relations Court. A tenant facing eviction often does not know that a thirty day notice, properly served, is the starting point under the Distress for Rent (Recovery) Act, Cap. 293 of the Laws of Kenya. An arrested person rarely realises that Article 49 of the Constitution guarantees their production in court within twenty four hours of arrest.

That gap, between what the Constitution promises and what an ordinary Kenyan actually experiences when the law arrives at their door, is the gap in which injustice lives. It is also the gap that years of work in contract law, in regulatory compliance, in organisational governance and in cross border advisory practice have shown me again and again, from a different angle each time. Whether the work is sitting opposite a sovereign wealth fund's procurement counsel, or working with a board in Kampala on a reconstitution of governance, or supporting governance and compliance work in Sierra Leone involving an executive director's separation, the same pattern repeats. The law is a powerful instrument in the hands of those who understand it, and a quiet, brutal force in the lives of those who do not. The difference between the two is access. Not access to a courtroom; access to the language, the procedure, and the courage to walk through doors the Constitution has already opened.

Sheria Smart is the result. It is legal information, never legal advice. It is a starting point, never a substitute for counsel. But it is a starting point that meets Kenyans where they are, in Kiswahili and in English, on a phone that fits in a pocket, at a cost low enough that no household has to choose between dignity and knowing the law that governs them. When Article 48 of the Constitution speaks of access to justice for all, this is what it should look like in practice.

The Constitution did the hard work. It enumerated the rights, it established the courts, and at Article 159(2)(d) it directed the judiciary to promote alternative forms of dispute resolution. The Small Claims Court Act, No. 2 of 2016, went further still, telling Kenyans plainly that they may appear in person, with no advocate required, for civil matters up to one million shillings. The right was already there. What was missing was the tool that made it usable.

That is what we have set out to build. Not a substitute for the legal profession, but a bridge between the profession and the citizen. Every user whose matter calls for an advocate is routed through the Law Society of Kenya directory. Every user whose matter is one of poverty rather than complexity is pointed to the National Legal Aid Service. The rest are equipped with the language, the procedure, and the confidence to walk into a court station and ask for what the Constitution already promised them.

Access to justice is not charity. It is the foundation on which any constitutional democracy stands. We are building the tools that make it real, one Kenyan at a time.

A platform, not a practitioner.

Anyone serious about a technology product that touches the legal profession owes the public, the regulator, and the bar a plain explanation of where it sits. Here it is, in the terms a thoughtful reader would expect.

What Sheria Smart is.

A technology platform that publishes plain language explanations of Kenyan statute, sets out the procedure the relevant statute itself contemplates, and hosts LexAI, a legal information assistant powered by artificial intelligence. The audience is the Kenyan public.

Who operates Sheria Smart.

The platform is operated by Sheria Smart, a limited liability company . No employee or director of the operating company is admitted to the Roll of Advocates of the High Court of Kenya, holds a practising certificate, or holds out as an advocate within the meaning of section 31 of the Advocates Act, Cap. 16 of the Laws of Kenya. The company does not act as an advocate for third parties and does not take instructions for reward.

What Sheria Smart does not do.

The platform offers no legal advice on any particular matter, no representation in any court or tribunal, and no drafting of pleadings filed in a user's name without that user's personal review and signature. Where the user requires counsel, the platform's function is to point clearly at the Law Society of Kenya directory; selection and engagement of an advocate is a matter strictly between the citizen and the practitioner.

Where the line is drawn.

The line lies at the point Kenyan statute itself permits personal appearance, and on the side of equipping the citizen who is statutorily entitled to appear. Anywhere on the other side of that line, the platform directs the user out, either to qualified counsel or to the National Legal Aid Service. The routing is intentional, and it is permanent.

Data protection and privacy.

Personal data of users in Kenya is processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act, Cap. 411C of the Laws of Kenya, and the Data Protection (General) Regulations, 2021. Data of users in jurisdictions outside Kenya is processed under the applicable data protection law of that jurisdiction, Tex. applicable data protection law of any other jurisdiction from which the platform is accessed. The processing of children's data follows the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501 to 6506, alongside the Children Act, No. 29 of 2022. The full disclosure is set out in the Privacy Notice.